I would be interested to know if there was a chance of publishing an article, or even best a best preactices guide, for multilingual sites. Particulary how companies should go about setting up a site in different languages and still get indexed in all the local search engines? Thanks.

Might be a different guide for each language is needed. As internet is quite different from language to language; ways of surviving in particular language could be different.

You really have to approach this on a language to language and country to country basis. Think out of the box and ensure the site is build from the start with the aim of using a (local!)domain per language/country and not one domain for the entire site.
So you either end up with multiple sites integrated into one another and technically being one site (in the back-end) or multiple sites linking to each other. Either way can be done fine without degrading the visitor's experience on the site.

Getting indexed in the local search engines is very simple, competing for the competitive local phrases, now that is a different story!

Thanks for the replies guys. But what about writing up some best practices? It would make for great linkbait for Multilingual Search. And it's supposed to be our specialty...

We'd have to put together a document with a section for every country ... ins and outs of search marketing for that country with a complete list of search engines and directories - how's that sound and how many of us are ready to undertake the effort ?

I can do it but I need to know Andy is gonna push this thru the sky[listening Andy ? ] so we get linsk and visibility = good contacts ;-)

__________________

Sante J. Achille
Search Engines & Web Marketing Consultant
skype: rifardo

Sante - I'm always listening especially to you

The purpose of the forums is to build up that kind of information over time with the contributions of everyone.

What will push this forum into the sky is a wide membership and a little work from everyone involved.

It's worth noting that this site is tracked and the analytics are showing us quite substantial progress in terms of visibility.

We are issuing press releases around the globe all the time and every time we do that we get a huge spike in activity. Press releases have so far gone out in Russian, Greek and French as well as English.... Italian coming soon

Andy

See ? he's listening

I think the best way forward is to write out a table of content - nothing fancy, an outline of what we'd like to see as far as multilingual goes and then develop the content - not that we have to write pages by the hundreds, but enough detailed information with a few tips on our local markets, with users habits and trends - Andy, while you're on the plane over across the pond (=Atlantic) instead of drinking, lay out the plan ;-)

__________________

Sante J. Achille
Search Engines & Web Marketing Consultant
skype: rifardo

I am confident that over the years he has developed the skill to do both at the same time

Those of you who have flown with me will know that, because I don't much care for flying (understatement) it's not really the time to get most inspiration from me...

But I've set up a thread in Soapbox where each post is a suggestion for added content that we need to see

Andy